Trump administration investigates Smith College for admitting transgender women | Trump administration
The U.S. education department is investigating one of the nation’s largest women’s colleges over its admission of transgender women, in another escalation of the Trump administration’s attacks on transgender people.
The department’s civil rights office announced the investigation Monday in a press releaseHe said the Massachusetts college may be violating federal law by “allowing biological males to enter women’s intimate spaces,” including dormitories, bathrooms, locker rooms and sports teams.
Title IX, the federal law intended to prevent discrimination based on sex in education and extracurricular activities, includes an exemption for all-male or all-female colleges. However, the ministry said this only applies to “biological sex difference, not subjective gender identity.” Accepting transgender students will mean that the university will no longer be considered single-sex.
“An all-female college loses all meaning if it admits biological males,” Kimberly Richey, assistant secretary for civil rights, said in a statement. “Allowing biological males into spaces designed for women raises serious concerns about privacy, fairness, and compliance with federal law. The Trump Administration will continue to support the law and fight to restore common sense.”
Smith’s admissions policy allows “all applicants who self-identify as women,” including “cisgender, trans, and gender non-binary women,” according to the university’s rules website. The college opened in 1875 and its alumni include first ladies, elected officials and civic leaders.
The investigation comes as the Trump administration seeks to ban transgender people from public spaces. The administration is trying to end transgender participation in sports; this includes filing lawsuits against states that allow such participation and seeks to ban access to gender-affirming medical care. Donald Trump banned transgender people from joining the military and required passports to match biological sex at birth.
The university said in a statement that it had received notice of the Title IX investigation.
“The college is fully committed to its institutional values, including compliance with civil rights laws,” the statement said. “The College does not comment on ongoing government investigations.”
Defending Education, a right-wing education group, filed a complaint against Smith with the education department’s civil rights office in June 2025, calling on the department to investigate the university. The group is going after schools and teachers unions across the country over their diversity policies and perceived biases, and says it wants to “combat indoctrination in classrooms and on campus.”
“Ironically, in what appears to be another exercise in gender discrimination, Smith admits natal males who identify as female, but not natal females who identify as male,” Defending Education wrote. complaint.
The college confirmed in 2015 that its policy would include accepting transgender women, after studying the issue for a year and speaking with students and alumni.
“The mission of Smith College is to educate promising women for distinguished lives. In the years since Smith’s founding, concepts of female identity have evolved. Smith alumni have become leaders in the movement to grant women greater freedom of desire and self-expression,” college leaders said. he wrote at the time.
Smith College last year in question This would follow a new policy from the National Collegiate Athletic Association regarding transgender women’s participation in athletics, which bans transgender women from playing in women’s sports.
